City Found Liable For Highway Death

ST. LOUIS (CN) – A circuit court jury found the city, not the driver, was at fault for the death of a wheelchair-bound woman who was hit by a car in November 2005. The parents of the late Elizabeth Bansen, 40, say she was killed on Delmar Boulevard because the sidewalk was impassable.

The jury awarded $250,000 to Bansen’s parents. Bansen was hit by Arnold Booker, 47, who was on his way to pick up his wife from work when the accident occurred at 6 p.m. on Nov. 2, 2005. Booker said that he never saw Bansen and that a nearby street light was burned out. The City of St. Louis argued that the sidewalk was passable and that in two years of living in the neighborhood, Bansen had never complained of the problem. But the jury found the city at fault and absolved Booker in a unanimous decision.